The Marxmen
by The Wise Sponge
Summary: The Marxmen.
1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time there where 3 men who worked as hired assassins. Their names we-

_**Wait, wait, wait! Hold your horses! We can't start the story like this, start it again! Ok, ahem here goes.**_

The Marxmen. Hired assassins. The best of the best. John, Max and Carter. This story begins in the unpredictable city of Detroit.

The men reviewed their plans once more. One mistake could cost them the contract.

_"Alright boys, here's the deal-io. We need to eliminate these guys so we can get our do-re-mi, if you catch my drift."_Their leader Max said in a rather dodgy southern accent.

_"How should we go in?" Carter__injected_**_Ahem,_**___interjected._

_"I'm ready when you guys are", John glumly exfoliated, "Let's take these guys out."_

They prepared their weapons and silently approached the back door of the factory, carefully analyzing their surroundings.

Max carefully led the team inside, John covered the rear, and Carter? Well, let's just say he shouldn't have switched to decaf. Carefully sweeping the corners and silently taking out anyone who posed a potential threat to their mission was just routine, so they just went through the motions as usual.

Creativity was key in these "assignments". Killing silently was good, making it seem like an accident was better. Out of the three, Carter was the most creative, a sign that he obviously had **too much** time on his hands and **should really** get a hobby. Swiftly snapping necks and hitting pressure points was not to put too fine a point on it, rather old-fashioned, _**I don't seem to think so, but it's not my opinion. **_Their idea of creativity was rigging electricity to water and steel doors, dropping heavy objects upon people and of course, poisoning some poor soul's coffee.

Finally reaching the their target's office, The Marxmen burst through the door in a fiery rain of bullets, massacring all those who were present and finally leaving the target defenseless against the three harbingers of death. John and Carter stood guard outside the door, leaving Max alone with the target.

Max slowly approached the target, pulling out his high caliber pistol and putting in a fresh magazine.

"_Great, another middle-aged business man gone crooked, third one this week", Max said under his breath, "Hopefully this one's not a squealer."_

"_Please, don't shoot me. I'll do anything you want just please don't kill me!" The target uttered anxiously, his lower lip quivering in fear._

Max slid the barrel into the man's mouth, playfully half-tugging on the trigger. The man's heavy breathing; the symphony of the room. His muffled cries for mercy, drowned out by the bad-mannered Max's verbal mockery of the man's present circumstances. Max gave one final jeer and pulled the trigger, the man's brains splattering all over his recently renovated trophy wall, staining his most cherished memories into unification with his treasured family portrait collection.

Hearing the shot John shouted out, _"I guess that means you're done. Now let's get the hell out of here!"_

Max unbolted the door, and with hasty precision, took one final glance at his work.

"_Well boys, looks like another job well done!" Max pronounced proudly._

The trio strutted towards the exit with a spring in their step, when to their surprise, they were actually missing John. _"Nature must have left a message" Max joking exclaimed._

John, fastening his pants after taking a relieving **piss**, walked in the general direction to the exit, when something caught his eye. An unusual, metallic device. Certainly out of place in this type of factory. Teeming with curiosity, he proceeded to press, out of all the colourful grey buttons, the only red one. A screen with the number 30 lit up as well with a strange droning noise. The droning noise assaulted his ears until one booming resonance, accompanied by a bright flash, colours in a tunnel shape, a vortex exploded before his eyes.

John was instantly transported to an alternate dimension, into a damp, dimly-lit cave. John glanced at his newfound surroundings, his eyes unwillingly taking in all the information. John saw a small light, perhaps it was the exit. John approached the light, unknowingly pressing some buttons on the strange device. He saw the silhouette of what appeared to be a young man and a strange creature standing beside him. The strange creature turned its head at John and made an inaudible remark to the man beside him. As he continued to approach cautiously, a bright flash, colours in a tunnel shape, a vortex exploded before his eyes once more. He was back in the factory, and the strange device? Gone. He shrugged off the experience as nothing more than a hallucination or a vision. John reunited with his comrades-in-arms and they strolled out of the factory, without a second glance. Their backdrop; a fiery eruption of twisted steel and bricks, lighting the night sky with an explosion second-to-none.


	2. Chapter 2

"_Well paid and made, boys!" Max shouted to his companions over the hubbub of the bar, "Let's drink!"_

"_To us, and to money!" John shouted, "How about you, Carter? What do you propose a toast to?"_

Carter lay unresponsively slumped on the bar stool, his head on his plate of hot chips. A distinctive, loud snore emitted from his face, and his companions watched for a fraction of a second before bursting into boisterous laughter.

"_Well, there's one reason why I never drink decaf." Max muttered with a grin on this face, "And we're looking at it!"_

Max and John propped Carter up, his arms hanging limply around their necks. _"What has he been eating?" Max jeeringly shouted. _Slowly but surely, they made it to the abandoned apartment building and once opening the half-stuck door, they dropped Carter on the floor and ran to the couch. Eagerly expecting some coverage for their actions, Max grabbed the remote, fumbling to find the right button and finally turning on the aging television set. A late night news channel reported the factory's explosion and blatantly skewed the fact that the majority of the charred bodies had indeed been found with several bullet holes. However, that same channel did admit that the police suspected the factory had been detonated by the use of the various explosive chemicals used in the production of hairspray. The police had also not ruled out The Marxmen's rumoured existence or their speculated involvement in the destruction of an alleged drug lab within the factory

The following morning, Carter awoke, his memory, not particularly amazing could not remember much after ordering his beer and chips. He sat up, and groaned after he felt an unusual pain in his back. _"They dropped me on the floor again, didn't they?" _Carter thought and, assumed correctly.

He walked over to the kitchen and saw a bulging envelope with a familiar looking green paper-like object sticking out from the broken seal. _"We must have gotten a bonus for creativity." _Carter thought, once again wincing and groaning in pain. Carter continued to search the timeworn kitchen and something caught his eye. It was a small photograph hidden behind an old kettle, he thought it curious that he had never noticed its presence. He snatched the photo out of its hiding place and almost at once dropped it on the floor. _"Max isn't married. I'm sure that he isn't!" _Carter thought, half-mumbling his thoughts. He picked it up tucked it neatly into his jacket when he heard footsteps coming from bedroom.

"_Morning, Carter!" Max said snickering softly, "Did you have a good night's sleep?"_

"_No thanks to you, dickhead" Carter muttered under his breath, "I hope you didn't."_

"_No hard feelings, Carter", Max said inching closer to the kettle, "We wanted to see if we made the late night news."_

"_Did you? Not like I care anyway" Carter replied, "But, just because you two were too excited to drag me to my bed, I hope we got more than just the local news!"_

"_Yeah, we made Fox News and a few local channels in the vicinity", Max answered, "And this time the cops mentioned us, maybe now we'll get more business."_

John awoke shortly after and the trio checked their mail. An unmarked sender had sent personal details of a well-known and respected local politician, and the full payment in advance. The only clue of their employer, the mysterious initials "T.R" and another single "R" inside the envelope.

_Alright, boys! Another job, another dollar!" Max said, whistling a familiar tune._

The Marxmen all got into their signature trench coats and hid their weapons inside before departing for the bustling city center of Detroit. They drove their average-looking car to the MGM Grand Detroit, where they had been told to present a calling card with "T.R" and that they would be shown a room with the assassination weapon in the walk-in wardrobe.

The Marxmen entered the lobby, presenting the calling card, a busboy led them into the elevator and took them up to their hotel room. Only after tipping the insistent busboy so that he would leave them alone, Max stepped into the wardrobe and two large briefcases with the same initials "T.R" instantly caught his eye. _"Not suspicious at all." _Max said to himself. Carrying the cases to the bedroom, where his companions were waiting, he placed them on the bed, unlocking them with the supplied combination codes. They stared in awe at the beautiful masterpiece presented to them in the form of the Denel NTW-20, a portable sniper rifle, legendary for its power, accuracy and of course, it's portability. After careful consideration to the instructions, The Marxmen assembled the rifle and approached the bedroom window, mentioned in the contract details as being directly in the line of sight of their target's favourite coffee shop.

"_Uh, Max I was just wondering, won't there be people down there as well?"_ _Carter asked, with a concerned look on his face._

"_You can count on that Carter, you can count on that." Max replied, with an unnaturally calm voice, "It's now or never!"_


	3. Chapter 3

Max approached the window and set up the sniper rifle, with the bipod resting on the windowsill. Max looked through the telescopic sight and zeroed in on his target. Taking a deep breath and concentrating hard, Max pulled the trigger. In a split-second, a calm street became a haven of madness. The Marxmen ran for the elevator, stopping dead in their tracks when the doors opened. SWAT Units poured out in a mad frenzy and opened fire on The Marxmen. Getting behind cover, they returned fire and moved from cover to cover, to avoid any unnecessary bullets penetrating through and injuring them.

"_I'm almost out!" Carter shouted, over the hailstorm of bullets._

"_Don't worry they're almost dead!" John replied._

And it was true, out of all the SWAT Units, only one remained. The trouble was, he had enough more ammunition than The Marxmen had. The lone SWAT technician spared no expense with bullets, filling everything that moved with fresh bullet holes. The Marxmen made sure to stay perfectly still to avoid being filled with lead. The Marxmen needed a plan and fast! Max carefully formulated a detailed plan to distract and then eliminate the lone gunman, unfortunately he discarded the idea and instead, decided to get them all to pop up and fire their guns at the same time.

"_Alright, boys on three, we get up and shoot this bastard in the gonads!" Max whispered to his pals._

"_Um, ok, that's your big plan?" John asked._

"_Yeah, that sounds kinda dangerous." Carter added._

"_If we all get up at the same time, he won't know which one of us to shoot!" Max replied, "Alright on three. One. Two. Three!"_

As if slow-motion, The Marxmen stood up and pulled their triggers. _Click, click, and click. _Their guns were all empty. As soon as they realized their mistake, they ducked down. _"Shit! We're out of ammo!" Max shouted._ They said their prayers as glass shattered and furniture burst into an array of fabric rain. Then suddenly as if an answer to their prayers, a piercing sound and a bright light accompanied with an ear-ringing sensation came over all the occupants of the room. John regained his state of mind and saw a familiar object beside him. _"What the!? Didn't that disappear last night in the factory?"_ John thought before searching the object for anything useful. He spotted a small, red switch and pressed it, a small compartment popped out of one side and had a single bullet, placing the mysterious object into his jacket pocket. _"Just what the doctor ordered!" _John loaded the bullet and stood up. With one sharp tug, a small metal object became a supersonic instrument of death. A spurt of blood gushed out of the newly made bullet hole, a groan was heard before the last SWAT Unit collapsed onto the floor, recently deceased. The Marxmen walked to the elevator, Max pressed the button and they calmly waited, listening to the pretty music.

Walking out of the building, they were held up by security and asked what they saw on the upper floors. Max calmly explained that they were in their rooms having a rest when they were rudely interrupted by gunshots in the next room, so they were leaving and taking their business elsewhere. The staff apologized for the traumatizing experience and offered to compensate by making the rest of their stay free. Max kindly declined and The Marxmen walked out of the MGM Grand Detroit, another job well done. But the real concern for them was when John said this, _"You know that bright flash and that loud noise that we experienced in the room?"_

"_Yeah, what about it? Flashbang, nothing more." Max replied._

"_Yeah, what are you trying to say anyway, John?" Carter added._

"_Well, let's just say that what we experienced wasn't a Flashbang. It was something else, really." John replied, concealing the truth, "It was just some advanced tech."_

"_Too bad we'll never see it again." Max replied, with a relieved expression on his face._

"_Yeah, never see it again." John said with an unsure tone of voice._

The Marxmen rewarded themselves with a night out for dinner, a celebration of their first assassination followed by a SWAT siege. _"Well, having a police shootout was definitely a first." Max uttered, his mouth half-full of food. _They laughed and had a round of drinks. **A lot of drinks.**

**The Marxmen will return in Chapter 4.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Weeks progressed into months, and soon the Marxmen were rich. Filthy rich. Constantly on the run from the authorities and constantly outsmarting them. John had learnt to scowl less and smile more, Max had gotten unusually unstable at times and Carter? Well, he was the same old Carter. When everything was seemingly perfect, fate had some cruel ideas.**

"_What do we got here, boys?" Max remarked in a slightly convincing Southern accent._

"_Looks like some sort of waffle maker," Carter hypothesized, "I think."_

"_Are you serious, Carter?" John interrupted with a concerned look._

_Carter proudly proclaimed, "Yeah, I mean look at all the possibilities!" _

_John exhaled and relaxed his shoulders and corrected him, "It's an M134 Minigun, Carter, not a waffle maker."_

**Carter, though a crack shot and mechanical prodigy, lacked insight when it came to weaponry, all he knew were pistols and submachine guns. Seeing a gun of such high caliber was confusing and beyond his imagination. **

The Marxmen's cheeky banter was rudely interrupted however, by a storm of bullets, shredding the walls like mozzarella cheese, and decimating their makeshift shanty house to ashes.

"_I think it's to paniiiiiiiiiic!" John exclaimed before being interrupted by an unexpected explosion that sent him soaring through the air and left him bruised and battered when he hit the ground, "Urghh! Just my luck!"_

"_John! Are you alright, buddy?!" Max yelled over the sound of gunfire._

_John hesitantly got up, his legs giving way to pain, causing him to collapse, "Can't really feel my legs, but other than that I'm fine!"_

Carter ran as fast as his legs could carry him, dodging gunfire and missiles with precision and speed. He could smell the fuel burning, the incessant breeze of blades, and the sound of a thousand horses galloping behind him as he saw the terrifying shadow of the metal beast. A split-second margin of error could cost him his life but as he saw it, there was no way he wouldn't try it. Gracefully dashing through the dunes, he saw the opportunity to leap, and he acted on his instincts as time seemed to slow down as he felt the rush of air, the aroma of blood and the feel of rusted metal against his fingertips, as he drew his weapon, his trusty revolver and in mid-air rotated his body to face the jarring brute head-on, its weapons inclined to dispose of him and its master just as eager. Falling slowly, suspended in time, he pulled the harbinger of death, the trigger. The bullet whizzing through the air, its presence, intoxicating as it fragmented the windscreen, each crystallized shard piercing the pilot, delivering the discomfort of several smaller projectiles almost instantaneously. The lifeless entity slumped against the confines of its metal tomb, transforming the airborne nightmare into a startled creature, sending it whirling out of control; plummeting to its demise. Carter tumbling out of control on the dunes below, his bones barely withstanding the force inflicted upon him. His consciousness fading, as he groaned softly.

Max, tired out from hauling his almost limp, but fully conscious associate on his back, finally reached his other fallen comrade, and slapped his face multiple times until he awoke.

"_What!? What the heck? Did we kill them?" Carter gasped._

_Max let out a little smirk before announcing, "Yeah, thanks to you."_

_John opened his eyes and reassured him, "We would've been real screwed, man."_

The three men laughed raucously until their throats began to hurt and their eyes watered. They looted the dead corpses for goodies and helped themselves to anything they found. Then, as if nothing happened they walked towards one of the black SUVs and drove away, the smoke piling up for miles, the air filled with death and the stench of the deceased.

**Well, now I bet you though they were going to die, now didn't you? NOPE! These guys have unbelievably good luck and let's face it, they're pretty f&amp;#$ing awesome! Have fun and don't forget,**

**The Marxmen will return for Chapter 5.**


End file.
